Hallo, Hallo dear reader!

Jorie Loves A Story, is a blog that was inspired into creation due to a reader's love and passion for the written word. She reads bookish industry newsfeeds, keeps a pertinent eye on newly published authors, is readily eager to book travel to independent book shoppes, athenaeum libraries, historical landmarks of literary interest, and book festivals, conventions, or symposiums; absorbs herself into the written word, cherishing each book she comes across that has the ability to transport herself into another time, place, and world. This is her journey, as she uncovers one book at a time that leaves her musefully happy for the discovery.

Jorie Loves A Story Disclosure

I do not receive monetary compensation for my participation on blog book tours, non-tour reviews direct from publishers/authors/publicists, guest author features or cover reveals/book blitzs, etc. nor do I receive monetary compensation for my participation in Book Browse First Impressions, the LibraryThing Early Reviewer programme, NetGalley, LibroFM's ACL programme, Brenda S. Anderson's Street Team, Nicole Evelina's Street Team; Once Upon A Book Club and Crime Fiction Subscription Box (as an influencer of their products) or any participation I had in the past with other street teams or programmes. All books I receive from these sources are sent to me directly from the publisher, author, literary or publicity agent, touring company and/or NetGalley, LibroFM, Once Upon A Time Book Club and Crime Fiction Book Subscription Box. How I acquire the book (or book subscription box) and/or audiobook I am reviewing or the guest feature I am highlighting will be disclosed on the individual post.

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I disclose information about the books I receive in exchange for honest reviews to be in compliance with the FTC, but also for due diligence in informing my regular readers & visitors alike on where I obtained the books I am blogging about so that they are aware of where the materials originated.

To summarize:
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[Official Blurb] Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature / weekly meme created by The Broke & the Bookish. The meme was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke & the Bookish. We’d love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your Top 10 Lists! In January, 2018 this meme is now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

I’ve been wanting to showcase the STORIES I’ve had my eye on reading for quite a few years now; as each New Year when #TopTenTuesday is hosting one of these lovelies, I’ve wanted to dive into the topic and settle my thoughts on a selection of stories I would most desire to read or would be planning to read in the timeline of the topic’s originating post.

This year is quite special as I came to find out about several #newbooks by already beloved authors which are coming out in early 2020. Some are #newtomeauthors carried forward from [2019] and others are #newtomeauthors arriving in my bookish life in [2020!]; uniquely enough! (big smiles) Several are past, present & forthcoming featured guests on @SatBookChat (the Romance & Women’s Fiction chat I host on Saturdays semi-weekly – at least twice monthly) – whilst one release in particular is a celebration of one author’s adventurous journey in Japan whilst healing and recovering from Cancer.

Each of these stories attracted my eyes for different reasons – which I’ll be happily discussing and revealling throughout the post. Kindly let me know in the comments if I’ve struck your own keen eye of interest and if perhaps we share any mutual #mustreads for 2020 in common OR have any authors we share in our readerly lives we’ve previously discovered!?

I’ll be re-routing through the original post for #TopTenTuesday when this topic originated whilst including it on this week’s linky for everyone to seek out to find.

Let’s all have a rockin’ blast this first half of 2020!

Stay bookishly curious

& may your readerly adventures be as blissful as my own!

DUE NOTE: all the authors and books on this list are a combination of the stories I have the pleasure of meeting as a book blogger (ie. blog tours, publicists, publishers or direct from authors themselves) with the exception of Kate Elliott, of whom I discovered as a seventeen year old who joined the Science Fiction Book Club (it was mail-order book catalogue club) and found “King’s Dragon” (Book One of the Crown of Stars Saga). Two of these authors are #newtomeauthors – both of whom are upcoming guests during @SatBookChat – Jenni Fletcher and Emma S. Jackson.

Each of the books represented here are stories I hand-picked to be of interest to my own readerly wanderings this first half of 2020 – the press materials featured were given to me to use on this post to celebrate the stories themselve with full permission of the authors who wrote the stories.

In regards to my personal connections to these authors, I have maintained contact with Kate Elliott off/on via Twitter whilst keeping my eyes on her current series and releases; inasmuch as the fact that I had the pleasure of getting to know certain ChocLit authors as we communicated and shared our bookish and writerly lives through my chat (@SatBookChat) – Christina Courtenay, Clare Chase and Janet Gover. With Ms Kaine, I have tried to keep in the loop with her releases but I haven’t had the chance to interact with her as much as the other writers I’ve mentioned.

Susan Spann and Jennifer Silverwood I’ve considered friends over the years where their path and mine have continued to cross. I originally met Ms Spann in @LitChat before reading the very first Shinobi Mystery which was “Claws of the Cat”. Silverwood and I have the same literary wanderings and interests as fellow readers and writers which is why we forged a friendship due to so many mutual interests we have shared. Ms Bacarr and I remained in contact between my first meeting with her during #HistFicChat and after I had read her novel “Christmas Once Again” – happily having her as a featured guest on @SatBookChat this past November, 2019.

I am disclosing this, to assure you that I can formulate an honest opinion, even though I have interacted with these authors through our respective love & passion of reading inside the twitterverse whilst I host #SatBookChat and having previously read their stories. I treat each book as a ‘new experience’, whether I personally know the author OR whether I am reading a book by them for the first time or continuing to read their releases as they are available. This also applies to when I am discussing their stories outside of featuring a review.

A heartfelt and compelling story of family, secrets and second chances, set in the heart of the beautiful Hunter Valley of NSW, from an award-winning voice in Australian fiction.

Family, fortune and holding on to what counts…

For many years Elizabeth Lawson has battled single-handedly to run the family’s historic horse stud in memory of her beloved father. But a devastating loss puts her dreams at risk. With no options left, Liz is forced to turn to her estranged sister Kayla for help.

Kayla has built a new life in the city as a wedding planner, far removed from the stable yard sweat and dust of her rural upbringing. She never thought she’d go back. But when Liz calls out of the blue, Kayla forms a plan that could save their childhood home.

Kayla’s return forces Liz to confront her past … and her future, in the shape of Mitch, her first and only love, who still watches over her from the other side of the creek.

But Liz still hides a terrible secret. When Kayla learns the truth, will the Lawson sisters find common ground or will their conflict splinter the family once again?

[Official Blurb] Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature / weekly meme created by The Broke & the Bookish. The meme was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke & the Bookish. We’d love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your Top 10 Lists! In January, 2018 this meme is now hosted byThat Artsy Reader Girl.

[ Topic of 8th October, 2019:
Character Traits I Love;
Personality Traits I Love to See In Book Characters:
Things That Make Me Love a Character ]

→ Which works brilliantly into a Top Ten Tuesday post
I originally wrote to coincide with the Topic of 2nd July, 2019:

We needed to discuss *characters!* with an OPEN THEME/CHOICE:

Top Ten Authors Who Deserve More Recommendation
(and their characters I loved discovering!)

Today’s entry was inspiring to me for the following reasons:

As avid readers, we meet so many dearly incredible characters throughout our bookish journeys – it would make sense, somewhere over the score of time – we are going to come across authors & characters who leave imprinted impressions on our bookish hearts which not just effect us through time and space but they leave such a distinction of presence on our readerly lives. Sometimes they never quite leave us – as there is a part of them inside us still – all these hours after they’ve left our thoughts, because for each character we’ve met in a story, their life and their experiences have bled into our own; their memories are now our memories as for each story we read, there is a potential there to live another life, through another person’s shoes irregardless of their gender; their essence affects us because we’ve breathed in their life.

It is hard to even speculate which characters in the *six years!* I’ve blogged have staid with me the longest and which stories I ache the most to re-read and re-visit alongside – those are goals and dreams I have for Winters long spent by fireside cosy nooks of space where knitting needles, hot tea and scones await me as cats linger in dreamscapes and snow gently falls outside frozen windows. Until then, when I’m granted the joy of a seasonal experience outside of volcanic Summers and blink-you-missed-it Winters, I happily appreciate the hours I have to spend with the characters as their stories ‘greet’ me on the pages their writers left me to find.

As a genre dancer – it is even harder to pin down the characters I regularly interact with as they could be a fantastical creature, a science fiction adventurer, a Magical Realism time bender or they’re living Contemporary or Historical lives – they could be young, old, or somewhere between; sorting out their lives or re-defining a second career or tackling adversity inasmuch as they are giving love a second chance. I love stories and for all the lovelies I regularly read there are still so many more horizons out there in the literary realms I desire to explore further, read harder and read particularly closer to the eras of time I love exploring most.

Whilst at the same time, if I can disappear into my favourite eras such as the Victorian, Regency & Edwardian periods of England – the Highlands of Scotland and criss-cross through a time portal which skips round the historical past from Ancient times to present-day on all the continents of curiosity and interest; wells, you can see where the well of possibilities deepens greatly!

Narrowing down this list of choices was a bit of a curiously serendipitous experience – I went with the inspiration at the moment and as this was originally composed in July, I dearly had to break the 11 references into 12 as – oh, my dear sweet bookish heavens – those Spinsters have left me hungering for more of their stories! I cannot wait to re-invest into their lives as I move into the second novel having consumed (er, devoured?) the first and fourth!

It goes without saying but I will remind you: brew your favourite cuppa & get comfy as this is a seriously long post about the stories and authors I hope might encourage a few new choices on your TBR Lists!

DUE NOTE: all the books featured on this Top Ten Tuesday post were complimentary books sent to me for review consideration and/or were sent in exchange for an honest review at some point or another over the past few years. I received them from publishers, publicists, authors and/or blog touring companies. I was not obligated to feature them on this Top Ten Tuesday post but wanted to feature them due to how incredibly attached I became to their narratives, characters and the immersive experience I felt as I read their stories.

Acquired Book By: I started hosting with Prism Book Tours at the end of [2017], having noticed the badge on Tressa’s blog (Wishful Endings) whilst I was visiting as we would partake in the same blog tours and/or book blogosphere memes. I had to put the memes on hold for several months (until I started to resume them (with Top Ten Tuesday) in January 2018). When I enquried about hosting for Prism, I found I liked the niche of authors and stories they were featuring regularly. I am unsure how many books I’ll review for them as most are offered digitally rather than in print but this happily marks one of the blog tours where I could receive a print book for review purposes. Oft-times you’ll find Prism Book Tours alighting on my blog through the series of guest features and spotlights with notes I’ll be hosting on behalf of their authors.

This particular review is slightly different from my regular blog tours and hosting features for Prism Book Tours – as an opportunity came along this Summer to secure a spot on a ‘review tour’ rather than a ‘blog tour’ for a five-book series from Harlequin Heartwarming entitled “Return of the Blackwell Brothers”. This differs as each of the reviewers and book bloggers who are committing to this review tour are posting at different intervals as each of the five novels release which is also co-dependent on the format we are signed on to review.

My reviews will be showcased from August 2018 through January 2019 beginning with the first novel by Carol Ross. Only the first and second novel will showcase the book synopsis, author photograph and her biography as the rest of the tour will only feature the serial information which is also seen on this post. Each of us had the flexibility to choose when we are posting our reviews which was another added bonus to this particular review tour. I elected to post mine on Saturdays, as for the past four years Saturdays have been happily focused on Romances (previously strictly by ChocLit) and I am going to continue to expand this featured part of the week encompassing more Romances by both ChocLit and different publishers. Except for when I needed to post during the week in lieu of Saturday due to health issues or life in general.

I received a complimentary copy of “The Rancher’s Homecoming” direct from the author Anna J. Stewart in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

Why I continue to feel attached & connected to the Blackwell Brothers:

I love the direction Vastine took to alight us back into the towne shortly after we left The Rancher’s Redemption as she re-aligned us immediately by having Tyler & Hadley have a bit of a run-in with Judge Edwards and Zoe! This was a brilliant move as it shows the shortness of time between the two installments whilst it also helps us understand the larger timeline of the series.

The more they played at faking their engagement the more entangled they became with each other and left them with little wiggle room. It was was a great way to set-up the angst before a real relationship, too. Their play-acting brought out a lot of the left-over issues Tyler hadn’t faced from his past whilst with Hadley, it also brought out her insecurities and her ethics. She was questioning her motives whilst she was at the ranch yet more to the point, she was also discovering a part about herself she wasn’t expecting to find. She really could settle into the slower pace and the quiet stillness of the Rocky mountains. It held an appeal to her which felt as if the ties to this particular place were actually stronger than their passion for the city they had left.

This is why I loved this installment: it brought back to centre the entire back-history of the Blackwell family. This series is anchoured on its living histories – even Big E for all his glory and issues, he held his family close in his heart. Evident moreso by the time you reached the final chapter of this story but more to the point, the Blackwells were a family who held a resilience in them that gave them a bit of an edge on others. They didn’t back down easily and they knew when to fight for something important. The joy of reading the series, of course, is watching how all these entangled issues start to unravel and how the family itself learns to ‘heal’.

This installment felt a bit more seamless in transition as it echoed more of the original groundwork in the series. Each of the writers has their own unique style, voice and spin on the Blackwell Brothers – however, of the three I’ve read before this one, this one felt closer to the first narrative voice where we first learnt who the Blackwell Brothers are and why this series is centred round their second chance at brotherhood.

Vastine also nails how to bridge all the characters back into the narrative – where she gives ample time to each of the characters we’ve come to appreciate in the series to a level of rotation I was clapping in joy to read. I really felt she understood how to re-centre the series – by creating this bridge between the first three installments and the fourth, whilst giving us a proper refresher on everyone’s quirks before we moved into the fifth and final installment. I truly applaud how she managed to do this as it was fastly become my favourite novel in the series outside of the first!

The setting is dearly appealling as the ranch the Blackwell Brothers own is in Montana – nestled with a backdrop of the Rockies, the brothers surely have a lovely sky to look out over everyday. Outside of the continuity she maintained, she put her own spin on the brothers and she enlarged our view of the large ensemble cast this series has become to include. I love larger casts in novels but sometimes, you find some of the characters get forsaken for others or sometimes, the ones you want to come back into sight yield to the current ones being focused upon. I give Ms Vastine full credit for giving us a chance to catch-up with everyone we’ve met thus far along but also, allowing us to feel as if we’ve maintained a connection to them from start to finish.

Acquired Book By: I started hosting with Prism Book Tours at the end of [2017], having noticed the badge on Tressa’s blog (Wishful Endings) whilst I was visiting as we would partake in the same blog tours and/or book blogosphere memes. I had to put the memes on hold for several months (until I started to resume them (with Top Ten Tuesday) in January 2018). When I enquiried about hosting for Prism, I found I liked the niche of authors and stories they were featuring regularly. I am unsure how many books I’ll review for them as most are offered digitally rather than in print but this happily marks one of the blog tours where I could receive a print book for review purposes. Oft-times you’ll find Prism Book Tours alighting on my blog through the series of guest features and spotlights with notes I’ll be hosting on behalf of their authors.

This particular review is slightly different from my regular blog tours and hosting features for Prism Book Tours – as an opportunity came along this Summer to secure a spot on a ‘review tour’ rather than a ‘blog tour’ for a five-book series from Harlequin Heartwarming entitled “Return of the Blackwell Brothers”. This differs as each of the reviewers and book bloggers who are committing to this review tour are posting at different intervals as each of the five novels release which is also co-dependent on the format we are signed on to review.

My reviews will be showcased from August 2018 through January 2019 beginning with the first novel by Carol Ross. Only the first and second novel will showcase the book synopsis, author photograph and her biography as the rest of the tour will only feature the serial information which is also seen on this post. Each of us had the flexibility to choose when we are posting our reviews which was another added bonus to this particular review tour. I elected to post mine on Saturdays, as for the past four years Saturdays have been happily focused on Romances (previously strictly by ChocLit) and I am going to continue to expand this featured part of the week encompassing more Romances by both ChocLit and different publishers. Except for when I needed to post during the week in lieu of Saturday due to health issues or life in general.

I received a complimentary copy of “The Rancher’s Fake Fiancée” direct from the author Amy Vastine in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

Why I continue to feel attached & connected to the Blackwell Brothers:

My first impression of Ben Blackwell was about a close cousin to Rachel’s – he was brass, he was full of himself and he had only put miles in distance between his past and the present; he never had actually taken the time to heal emotionally from how he was wounded. That in of itself was a bit telling – as he had a boiling temper under his persona of a city lawyer who hadn’t the time nor the inclination to deal with a country lawyer such as Rachel. The fact the two were interlinked in their past was just another spur in his boot to be frank!

Rachel had her fair share of hard knocks – the fact she had a louse for an ex was only half the story, her dedication to her daughter Poppy is what shined out of her will not to lose her composure. For Rachel, you could tell she was trying to make the best choices she could – not to focus on the choices she had regrets over nor on the prospects of what a future could yield. Everything was a bit too far away for those kinds of considerations when you have a custody dispute where your wings are clipped and your options are running on empty. You feel for her because she’s a hard-working single Mum who has the unfair disadvantage of having her daughter’s father more concerned with legalities than the actual duties of being a father! Aye.

The vexations mounting on Rachel’s spirits were reaching new layers of angst – especially as you could definitely feel the energy in her unravelling. Here she was trying to hold everything together – carrying the weight of the family’s ranch on her shoulders, inking out an honest trade as a lawyer and juggling her ex in her life to boot! Something had to give and it felt like this old timer ranch hand Henry was past his date of retirement! There is nothing worse than someone who doesn’t see the urgency in what is needed to get done and that is what was vexing Rachel the most. Here she was trying to make do with what she had – work an honest day and still sort out the ranch which hadn’t been properly managed since her father’s death. You had to just give the girl credit for not wanting to take the easier route out and sell.

The more we get to see Rachel and Ben interacting with each other, the more complicated it all feels as these are two best friends who had become jaded in life. It wasn’t entirely their fault, even Ben is being placed in a bad spot by his grandfather Big E (who hasn’t?) and that was leading into a nightmare of a situation involving Rachel as she was trying to defend her own ranch against the rights his family has had all these years. If you looked at it from the outside – they were two individuals caught in the quicksand of bad choices others had made but were now the only people who could attempt to put things back to rights. And, there’s the rub – how do you remain angry at your former best friend?

In keeping with the change of name for my Romance & Women’s Fiction Twitter chat [@SatBookChat previously known as @ChocLitSaturday] – I am announcing a change of features here on Jorie Loves A Story. Since January, 2014 I carved out a niche of focus which I named #ChocLitSaturdays as I have felt the best time to read romantic and dramatic stories are the weekends. This spun into a Twitter chat featuring the authors of ChocLit whilst I supplied weekly topics which would appeal to readers, writers and book bloggers alike. We grew into our own Saturday tribe of chatters – then, somewhere round the time of my father’s stroke in late [2016] and the forthcoming year of [2017] I started to feel less inspired to host the chat.

I had new plans to re-invent the chat in its new incantation as @SatBookChat but I also wanted to re-invent the complimentary showcases on my blog which would reflect the diversity of stories, authors and publishers I would be featuring on the chat itself. As at the root and heart of #ChocLitSaturday the chat were the stories I was reading which complimented the conversations.

After a difficult year for [personal health & wellness] this 2018, I am beginning anew this Autumn – selecting the stories to resume where I left off featuring the Romance & Women’s Fiction authors I am discovering to read whilst highlighting a story by the author I am chatting with during #SatBookChat. Every Saturday will feature a different author who writes either Romance or Women’s Fiction – for the remaining weeks of October and most of November, I will be featuring special guest authors during #SatBookChat whose stories I have either read, are reading or hope to read in the future if their newer releases. The reviews on Saturdays might inspire the topics in the forthcoming chats or they might be directly connected to the current guest author.

Our holiday break for the month of December will find us resuming #SatBookChat the week after New Year’s, 2019 where new guests and new stories will lay down the foundation of inspiring the topics, the conversations and the bookish recommendations towards promoting Romance & Women’s Fiction.

Acquired Book By: I started hosting with Prism Book Tours at the end of [2017], having noticed the badge on Tressa’s blog (Wishful Endings) whilst I was visiting as we would partake in the same blog tours and/or book blogosphere memes. I had to put the memes on hold for several months (until I started to resume them (with Top Ten Tuesday) in January 2018). When I enquried about hosting for Prism, I found I liked the niche of authors and stories they were featuring regularly. I am unsure how many books I’ll review for them as most are offered digitally rather than in print but this happily marks one of the blog tours where I could receive a print book for review purposes. Oft-times you’ll find Prism Book Tours alighting on my blog through the series of guest features and spotlights with notes I’ll be hosting on behalf of their authors.

This particular review is slightly different from my regular blog tours and hosting features for Prism Book Tours – as an opportunity came along this Summer to secure a spot on a ‘review tour’ rather than a ‘blog tour’ for a five-book series from Harlequin Heartwarming entitled “Return of the Blackwell Brothers”. This differs as each of the reviewers and book bloggers who are committing to this review tour are posting at different intervals as each of the five novels release which is also co-dependent on the format we are signed on to review.

My reviews will be showcased from August 2018 through January 2019 beginning with the first novel by Carol Ross. Only the first and second novel will showcase the book synopsis, author photograph and her biography as the rest of the tour will only feature the serial information which is also seen on this post. Each of us had the flexibility to choose when we are posting our reviews which was another added bonus to this particular review tour. I elected to post mine on Saturdays, as for the past four years Saturdays have been happily focused on Romances (previously strictly by ChocLit) and I am going to continue to expand this featured part of the week encompassing more Romances by both ChocLit and different publishers. Except for when I needed to post during the week in lieu of Saturday due to health issues or life in general.

I received a complimentary copy of “The Rancher’s Redemption” direct from the author Melinda Curtis in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

Why I continue to feel attached & connected to the Blackwell Brothers:

After concluding The Rancher’s Twins, a bit more was revealled about Big E – the grandfather giving all kinds of strife to his grandsons and giving the impression he was no longer interested in running the family’s ranch. The shambles this man left things was wicked awful and yet, at the end of the last installment, not everything we were perceiving as readers was exactly the way we felt we were being lead to believe – as there was a bit of a unique cliffhanger right at the very end of the novel! That particular dose of insight gave me a newfound respect for the Blackwell Brothers series as it added a hidden layer of depth to the evolving story-lines – one I hadn’t foreseen coming and one which it would appear is still becoming hinted about in The Rancher’s Rescue. At least, I hope it is will continue to thread into the background of the stories – as Big E is one grandfather no one will soon forget!

Meanwhile, whilst we re-focus off Big E (as we had previously) and re-focus on the son who returnt home at the request of his brother – we find Ethan less than enthused to be home! He cares about his work and his career as a Equestrian Vet but beyond that, he has no inclination of staying longer than necessary; something I had a feeling was going to change, as how often does life go according to our plans? It was good folly finding Ethan and Jonathan at odds with each other – they didn’t quite agree on their plan of attack to sort out the ranch’s crises but they respected each other enough not to let that draw a wedge between them too.

I truly like Grace – the accountant who works at the store where the Blackwells purchase everything they need for their ranches. She has a winning personality but she also doesn’t put herself first – she tries to find the middle ground, work with people and still find time for herself. What was interesting I thought is how she was hiding she was in her first trimester – as when she first came on scene in front of Ethan and her parents, I was half expecting Grace to be far enough along to be ‘showing’ and thereby, raised eyebrows would have been on Ethan. Mostly as they had been separated for awhile now and he would be instantly surprised by her condition. Though, this isn’t how it came about and as she isn’t showing outright, the baby was as secreted in her heart as it had been at conception!

There isn’t anything quite like a small towne where everyone knows what is happening before it actually happens! Such is the case as we cheekily get a purview of the kind of life Ethan would have if he wanted to stake a claim to come back home, live in his hometown and actually find that these neighbours of his wouldn’t mind what his finances said, they only wanted to support a Vet they could personally rally behind to do a job they felt was being left undone by their current in-towne Vet. For Ethan, it was a bit of a wake-up call to how many food centered invitations you could accept in a small space of time and still feel as if you were accomplishing something you never set out to do once you were home. I had a good chuckle of a laugh over how no one who called him cared if he was licensed and only wanted to have a conversation with him ‘friend to friend’.

As we shift through this installment – we gather more questions than answers about Big E – he’s this elusive character threading in the background of the series, even though I realised in the first story he’s the catalyst of the changes in the Blackwell brothers lives, the hardest part is finding rationalisation. I had a sneaking feeling Grace’s parents were going to be understanding when it came time for her and Ethan to finally have their heart-to-heart conversation. The way she is herself you can tell a bit about how she was raised and the kind of parents she had. It would have felt much more awkward if this had been written in a very stereotypical way; I was so thankful Webb took this route instead!

OOh and just as I had hoped – we get more insight into Big E himself right at the ending of the novel – I am always full of big smiles from reading this series! The ways in which the characters are drawing closer together, re-affirming their own life goals and dreams whilst the balance of one family’s future is still slipping in and out of the safety zone – there is an overwhelming uplift to read the Blackwell Brothers series! You come for the heartache, the family drama and the budding relationships but what stays with you the most is the enduring nature of the characters who populate the series! This is there story – where each new installment is a delightful new piece of the puzzle which knits out their legacies!

I devour books.
I read eclectically across genres and literary realms.
I celebrate #WeNeedDiverseBooks & #WeReadDiverseBooks!
I am truly a girl who LOVES stories!

I blog and tweet with a heap of bookish joy whilst soaking inside a story which gives me ruminative bliss! I'm a social reader who is wicked addictive to #bookTwitter + LibraryThing whilst visiting the bookish in the blogosphere.

I aim to INSPIRE you to find a new wicked read which will leave you happily blissful to have found!

A Note on Content:

The content of this blog may not be suitable for readers under the age of 18. I am a hybrid reader of INSPY & Mainstream Literature - reading stories in both Children's Lit and Adult Lit regularly as well as other platforms stories can reside (ie. poetry, etc). I monitor content for language as I personally do not appreciate overtly explicit content in the stories I am reading (see also Review Policy) and I do not share images or book covers which I feel are questionable for content which goes against my own reading preferences. However, due to themes, subjects or topics discussed within the stories I am reading I am posting this note about the stories I am blogging about on Jorie Loves A Story.

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